Beneath the Mushroom Clouds

This is the part one of a trilogy of short stories dealing with various persons dealing with a nuclear attack. The first part: "The Smog Arises," deals with four persons who after partying hard in the glitz Eastwood complex found themselves in the sights of three nuclear blasts aimed at the city.

Submitted:Apr 8, 2013
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One

The Smog Arises

I.

Three in the morning, when the upbeat sector of Libis' party
district, the night gave a cold wind during a day of January,
Elena Mayuhay raised her shotg lass filled with tequila and
shouted amidst the inaudible throng of dubtep music and noise.
She already drank too much. Unaware of her body, surroundings and
environment, she partied all night from nine to three along with
her band of droogettes from the sub-urban complex of Taguig. In
her tight fitting denim pants and straps, she gave herself to the
pilgrimage of noise and booze, travelling towards the final point
of intoxicated pleasure: the opportunity for casual sex.

Still in her third shot glass of tequila, Elena is on her
worst drunken night; margarita won't mix right in her stomach
used to San Mig Lights and Alcomix. Still she
drained her third shot with a greedy grin on her face and a
seductive look on the man in tight fitting shirt, trimmed arms
and an intense piercing look on his face. From her point of view,
he's a foreigner, a half blood perharps, from some part of the
world, gone to Manila for a night out. The thought went straight
to her brain to bring this stranger to a place she has known with
other men. But it must start here, in this club.

"Hey Lena, come..." I was Cathy del Mundo, a call centre agent on
her day off and a droogette of Elena, her face with powder to
hide the black spots beneath her eyes, a product of sleepless
nights and nocturnal alterations on her body clock. She stood in
front of Elena, asking her to come to the dance floor.

"See that man in maroon." She pointed to the foreigner with the
trimmed arms. After a naughty giggle Cathy responded.

"Of course, the hot macho guy with the fat companion."

"Precisely, why don't we approach them for a dance?"

"Of course friend," Cathy giggled with Elena as they made their
way into the crowd pushing aside other party goers at the centre
of the club. There at the left of this crowd of semi-drunk
people, the man in a muscle shirt with his not so fat companion
stood, hands rested on the wall with beer cups on the other. When
the two girls arrived, faced with a Cassanovan conquest the
chubby one started.

"Well...Well, chicas..." he gulped and continued. "What
can we do for ya?"

Cathy whispered to Elena's ears, afterwards Elena began with a
seductive tone aimed at the chubby man's companion. Seeing that
the two had no interest in him, he chuckled.

"Here's mi compañero, Johnny."

Elena came close to Johnny with their bodies almost touching each
other. Elena made sure to get close by Johnny's crotch to feel
the manhood inside, hiding in the thick cargo shorts.

"Okay," the chubby one signalled Johnny as he tried to leave him
with the two girls. "I'll be leaving you guys together while I
get another beer."

Without uttering a word and exaggerating the movement of his
lips, Johnny asked.

"Mikey get me a pack of 10s will ya."

Laughing naughtily, Mikey responded with sarcasm.

"You naughty kid"

Mikey went to the bartender for another beer. On his way, in the
middle of the crowd dancing to another dubstep beat, Mikey felt a
small shake. More like a small shake of the ground you feel when
a great weight falls down. He stopped and looked at the ceiling.
The concrete ceiling did not move nor could any crack be seen
high above the lighted walls. Then, the jockey played a loud bass
beat which hyped the dancers to jump repeatedly while shouting:
"Jump...drop the bass...drop the bass." Calm at the sight of
this, Mikey returned to the bartender for another pint of
SanMig.

Mikey and Johnny were usual customers and it comes with a
familiarity with Doc Jerry, the chemist turned bartender of the
club.

"Hey Jerry!"

"Mikey another pint?"

"Yup, you know Jerry for many times I've been here, this is the
only time I felt the ground shake from all the dancing."

"You have to thank that dubstep shit they've been playing since
o-twelve, we have to buy special bass speakers; but it drives
them nuts especially the young ones."

"Fuck dubstep doc...It's been causing me to feel the resonance of
steel and concrete of this building's structure."

"It's called 'drop the bass.'"

Doc referred to the pounding sound that shook the ground.

"That shit? Fuck...doc do you happen to also sell 10 packs?"

Doc shook his head and replied menacingly.

"Let me get this clear Mikey. I take care of the booze. But you
should come prepared. I ain't selling jacket packs. Mini stop is
just over twenty to thirty metres from here. Buy your jacket
packs there."

Alarmed by this sudden burst, Mikey emptied the pint cup stood
and made his way out into the thick cushioned doors of the club.
Without difficulty and a nod of approval from the bouncer, a big
man with a rather angry look on his eyes, he pulled the door and
made his way out of a short corridor lighted by fluorescent
bulbs. At four in the morning, the long line has already
disappeared, the bouncer at the end of the short corridor also
disappeared for no apparent reason.

Out of this place, Mikey felt the hot air searing through
his skin. Sweat immediately flowed out of his arms and brow,
dropping to his eyes making it difficult to focus. Only hours
ago, the air was moist and cold that one could wear leather
without worrying about sweating so much. But at this early, it
almost 40 degrees Celsius, he took out his smartphone, a sleek
Samsung device. He pressed the lock button and the phone gave a
rather obstinate flash and didn't respond for a few seconds.

"Stupid gizmos," he thought as he hardly pressed the screen to
unlock the phone.

It was 4:35 am. From inside the corridor where he stood he felt
that the sun was already high up like in midday during summer
when there are no clouds. This time, the light is bright, he felt
that the fact that the environment was changing just like what
one would watch from an Al Gore documentary.

"Good God! It's fucking hot how come it's still four in the
morning?"

Outside, he saw staggered concoction of men and women running,
some screaming not because of a famous actor who by chance went
there. The shrill is different, the tone: menacing and terrifying
and they run as if someone is on a shooting spree. Mikey then
noticed on his left still covered by the building, people were
pointing towards the sky.

"Oh God, its bright there aren't any stars."

The first person Mikey encountered is a tall man with a
chinita girlfriend he's pulling by the arm. He looked at
the woman's face; she was weeping. The sadness couldn't be
described as either shallow or deep; but she was altogether
terrified.

"What, the hell, happened dude?" Mikey tried to question the man.

The man pushed hum merely saying.

"I'm getting the fuck out of here."

The two disappeared from his sight as he walked slowly towards
the direction of the gathering.

He arrived at the spot; people looked worried with
girlfriends hugging or crying or whining at their partner's
chests and arms. People took pictures of what seemed to be a
fireworks display.

"What the hell just happened?"

"I dunno..."

Then from the distance another one said.

"That's the second so far."

"Fuck that shit, I'm not gonna die here."

Confused, Mikey took out his smartphone until another detail
struck dhimd. A line of jet air streaming through one point in
the sky, coming towards the south, it was small from their
distance; but he could see the object flying and closing in.

"Is that a jet, big deal?"

"Boy, that's an ICBM."

"IBM...IC...what?" Mikey never knew what the man from behind
meant. Maybe it's a new jet liner like the A380 or a 747 but
ICBM; he never knew anything of the sort.

"IC...what sir?"

"It's a ballistic missile. The first one arrived about an hour
ago, the second just thirty minutes ago, that's the third one."

"Fuck, you mean like in the video games?"

The man, quite a gentleman in a polo shirt and black pants,
looked at him with disappointment. He never replied again until
the bright light covered the sky with its glare and it rose above
the sky so high that the big mushroom cloud blotted out the night
sky with that blinding light. The explosion was different from
the first two, this one almost blinded Mikey and the others; he
felt the air punch him him right through the chest, knocking him
down over the cement drive way. The cars alarmed simultaneously
while others made their way back on their feet, on the horizon
the mushroom cloud went up the sky, power was cut off. The
brightness of the explosion is enough to light their way back.
Only then, Mikey discovered that he dropped his smartphone. He
retrieved it, pressed the button; but now it did not respond. He
clicked harder like one does on a typewriter but the phone did
not respond. He could only ran back to the club where already
some have come out to find out why the power was down.

Mikey returned to find Johnny with Cathy and Elena, his
hands wrapped on their bare shoulders. Johnny, on finding Mikey,
immediately raised his eyebrows to remind him about the errand.
Mikey looked at him with irritation and responded immediately.

Words were stuffed inside Mikey's mouth unable to describe what
just happened. The stammering Mikey could not help make out the
words that would mean tragedy. They never saw anything like that.
Rumbles, fistfights and drunken escapades were commonplace; but
this one goes beyond tragedy and disaster. This is something
unfamiliar and coming to a surprise, the effect is just
internally wounding.

II.

Johnny and his two conquests learned only after a few hours
about the attack. Hearing it from a security guard in a gas mask,
fear crept slowly as alcohol slowly dissipates on their stomachs
and Cathy first felt this creeping inside her. They were walking
towards Johnny's car along with Mikey, hoping that their area
wasn't affected.

"I never imagined this..."Tears flowed down Cathy's eyes as she
fell on her knees to weep.

"I can't even call back home, the guards say that even payphones
are busted."

She wept continuously and they stayed at that point at the
parking lot, overlooking the concoction of cars which are either
broken or blown away by the wind. Johnny acting like a gentleman
assisted Cathy resting her back on a slab of concrete, while he
along with Elena sat beside her, comforting her. Along C-5 road,
army trucks were sen moving to and fro on both lines. Soldiers
unlike the guards wore full body suits and masks beneath their
helmets, their weapons around their shoulders. Elena was the
first to ask a small Sergeant.

"Sir what happened awhile ago? They told us about an explosion
but why the masks and the eerie units like there's something
contagious in the air?"

The sergeant looked at the four of them. As he moved his head to
see the others, his covered and faceless head replied rather
dryly.

"We've been nuked."

The sergeant left as he spoke, leaving with the other soldiers.
They entered Eastwood Mall. One could hear from the sound of a
big megaphone the order to evacuate the mall and the hotel. The
four cannot return anymore, from the pile of cars, Johnny's red
Montero is in the bottom of the pile of cars, wrecked.
During the shockwave, cars flipped like small coins inside an
empty can. The building windows are destroyed. C-5 is empty
except for a few cars and army trucks.

"The question is when will they invade?"

"That is just a diversion...the real target is the United
States..."

"That's already part of the invasion..."

Cathy collapsed to the ground, crying harder. Without
communication, without news, without any notice she saw the world
shift from one side to another in a speed so fast it never had
any time to somehow alter her body. Still in her party attire,
she cried down and unfastened her hand from Johnny's well built
love handles. Elena could only look with pity as her own world is
altered along with Cathy. At first, it seemed vague, abstract to
the point of absurdity, tears do have a purpose; all the whining
and the cowardice serve something which they all share. At least
that is what these girls thought off. Everything was faced paced
as dubstep, beating and throbbing in a rhythm of ecstasy,
unconscious of the moving earth. Elena patted her friend's back
trying to comfort her.

"Okay..." Mikey started. "We need to know the affected areas.
I'll ask the army about it. I know nothing when it comes to nukes
or ICBMs so it's better that way."

Mikey remembered the days when he ignored History Chanel
and the boring documentaries they had seen at school. He was the
disinterested kid, sleeping at classes with nothing to think off
but the afternoon snack and what to do after school. Those days
when one would just find words to woo a high school crush or
think of the best alibi why you're late, that day, gone forever,
are just a mark in Mikey's head. He should've listened well.

Outside Eastwood Mall beside the parking lot reserved for
bank executives, a long line of beds and tables were set by the
army and a solitary medic was just about to zip close a black
body bag. The medic saw him and turned his head towards him.
Mikey approached the medic, an army soldier with the distinct Red
Cross on his helmet. He was about to zip the body bag when Mikey
appeared.

"Radioactive water...he drank something after the fallout. Water
has been contaminated by the fallout after the first explosion
crashed near the water treatment facility. That simply means that
any water from our faucets is generally toxic. Even the country's
latest water treatment facility could not handle radioactive
contamination."

"You mean..."

"Yes, they cut one of the most important water lines of the Metro
Manila area."

Gasping, Mikey could only look at the young woman expiring to an
early death.

"You should evacuate the area...the fallout is spreading from the
Makati area and the Quezon City area, we have to be quick.
Reports indicate that the fallout, mixed with pollution has
created radioactive smog. It's rather slow moving because of the
moist air. If it reaches this area even our masks won't be of any
use. The South and the North are unaffected; but it is best that
we move south. That is our only chance of escape."

"How about the others?"

"We can't take everyone and mostly people won't come with us.
They fear they'll be recruited for the army, expecting a
invasion."

Mikey burst out in anger. He grabbed the medic's collar and
threatened to punch him right through the visor.

"What about them? Huh...are they not part of the city?"

The lack of facial expression shades the medic's face. The mask
even covered all emotion from his lips. He never knew whether the
medic was afraid of him or he is about to draw his pistol and
shoot him then and there in among the heap of bodies.

"You know all too well that an attack is imminent. Don't you read
the papers or watch the television? Oh yeah because you're busy
fucking. If this didn't happen where would you be? In a motel
room or your posh Global city condo unit...guess what Makati is
in a fallout zone. The attack fried every electronic system which
made the Stock Market work in the first place."

Mikey could not reply. Their apartment is near Makati, a building
within the business district. The news sank immediately and the
tragedy so absurd a while ago became a blatant reality so strong
and savage. All humanity seems to be an absurd project. He
thought of every night he went to this place; the music, the
light, the fickle women and the booze, they were all part of that
unconscious desiring machine, moving through a bubble chamber
outside of space and time. The medic looked at him and completely
zipped the body bag. Through the blank expression and cruel
honesty, he could feel the panic and fear, springing forth from
his gas mask.

Unable to speak, Mikey could only think. His thoughts
appeared so loud in this solitary moment. His thoughts first
appeared just as whispers, a voice from afar; but now it screams
right through his internal sense. "Should I tell Johnny and the
girls?" Panic sets in; the feeling of hopelessness arises as the
clock ticks and the smog slowly emerges from the distance.

"How many have died today?"

"We don't know maybe millions and it would increase as the smog
covers majority of the region."

"Which means..."

"NCR would end up like Chernobyl. The device mixed with polluted
air, we don't even know when the affected areas are habitable
again. Even if the smog subsides, its effects could still be
felt."

The medic walked towards Eastwood mall, far from the parking lot
where Johnny and the girls were waiting for him. The soldiers
were working with hundreds of black body bags. From afar they
seemed to be bags of relief goods like the big ones you see in TV
after a storm. But as Mikey came closer, they were indeed body
bags as well as corpses, huddled together in a pile. It was skin
on skin, body on top of another body, in a mass orgy of death.
The stench was foul enough to sear right into one's nose,
blocking the nasal passages with a horrible stench of human flesh
disintegrating.

"They all died simultaneously?"

"Some died awhile ago...some maybe during the second explosion.
Most of them are residents of the condo units. The blast is too
powerful ad it stopped the cycle of the heart. The shockwave is
enough to kill them."

The soldiers continued with their work, placing body bags over a
makeshift cemetery. Beside the entrance of the mall, soldiers
dump the bodies inside the basement parking of Eastwood mall. At
the entrance, two soldiers prepare the wires connecting it with
bars of plastic explosives. They are prepared to blow the
entrance, sealing the underground. It was a desperate move to
bury the bodies and never cause panic; but to Mikey who saw it
all, the sight is much difficult to bear. What would he say to
Johnny and his girls? He learned already of Johnny's apparent
cowardice that beneath the trimmed arms and hypersexed physique
lay a common coward, hiding inside the hollow shell of Hercules.

Mikey soon entertained the thought of evacuating with the
army, towards south and towards safety. There wouldn't be any
glitz or neon lights after that but he could live with the
tragedy not with himself, that's absurd; but along with others
like himself who apparently saw the collapse of a world they once
known and loved. At least, that is the hope of a new existence.
He will live through the savage reality opening in fron of him,
the inevitable fact that anything he had valued or haven't valued
had disintegrated with the fireball, rising to the sky and never
to return again. Amidst this rubble is a blatant reality, a
savage mass of bodies grouping each other not of love, affection,
hate or another emotion; but the single most savage reality: a
fact that is neither foundational nor coherent? The unbelievable
part of this madness is that all desire seems to come at a
complete halt.

The army continued its work with the other casualties.
Everyone is in panic and the others have left on foot, to venture
around the possibility of safety. Mikey walked along the line of
restaurants which are either empty or a place of refuge of its
employees. He went back to the small corridor, leading to the
club with the hope of finding Doc Jerry for a last swig. He
approached the dark corridor only to find the door sealed by a
bright yellow plastic tape with the words: CAUTION, written in
bold black letters. The club was used as a treatment facility for
other victims of the fallout. He gazed at the place where all the
Cassanovan conquests and hang-up gimmicks led them to every motel
branch and colourful experience of a libertine life. He could
only face this madness with a stupid irrational grin. He couldn't
face Johnny who lay on their backs, watching the dawn pass over
the sky.

"Johnny, the army could evacuate us out of here...they're going
south, they say it's still unaffected. But they are closing down
Makati; the fallout has triggered an environmental mess. You
could bring them with us."

Then Johnny made that disconcerting look as if his consciousness
has already robbed him of the capability to be conscious and the
faculty to operate whatever was left of his mind. Johnny looked
at Mikey with a seeming burning gaze through his dark eyes. The
girls hold on to him as a beacon of strength; from their postures
and look of awful innocence, one could easily conclude that they
have settled with this Messiah. Silence reeked out of the parking
lot between Johnny and Mikey, the other being undecided and held
on with the idea that everything would turn out as it is again,
despite the blatant and savage reality before him and the other
with a spectre of an unknown feeling boiling inside, openness to
the non-existence perhaps. Yet, beneath this concoctions, Mikey
retorted again, expecting to convince Johnny.

"Come on..."

Then Johnny let fly with everything he's got in a burst of anger.

"Then get the fuck out! Leave us here till everything subsides.
That's what you're good at Mikey: you can't face
this...tragedy...I mean...challenge..., I don't fucking know
whatever it is, like a man. I'm staying here even if I had to die
out here. We'll take refuge at Citibank building."

Mikey stooped down and looked at Johnny's eyes. Those brown eyes
were not the same ones before but a different set of eyeballs
attached to a different man.

"What's with all the irrationality Johnny, we could get the hell
out of this mess."

"And what? Get help from the government, from the stinking church
with priests and ministers blabbering till thy kingdom come about
hope and resilience till thy kingdom come. No, we're too smart
for that Mikey remember? We will stay here, we'll find...a way."

At this point, Mikey, the disconcerted individualist, has lost
all that has defined him. Back to all that confusion and duality
between this and that, the choice between one girl and another
and the seeming reality of a two sided coin flipping constantly
in the void, it all occurred to him as an absurdity. It is not
important whether it is pleasurable or not, painful or not;
rather the reality one could possibly hold would be the
smoothness of that straight and savage reality that makes
pleasure and pain one thing. Like the explosion, such creative
force beneath something destructive. From the outside, the world
seems to be destroyed, crushed to the ground with stunning force
of a megaton bombs and gigantic missiles, blocking the sun with
its force; but somewhere lies the creative part of the tragedy as
Mikey and Johnny were both created anew.

III.

Johnny and Mikey stood at the parking lot motionless for
about ten minutes. A few metres away, the army just blew down
Eastwood mall's basement parking lot, sealing hundreds of dead
bodies inside an artificial sarcophagus. The entrance from the
mall was sealed with cement and the main glass doors were sealed
with yellow warning tapes, leaving the once bustling hub
abandoned. The building once the hub of the rich and the elite,
the gathering of people who had everything, now stood not as a
living fossil of economic gain; but a simple reminder of the dead
and the desperation to take care of their bodies.

For all they know, Libis now stood as a grim time capsule.
Once a place of neon lights, laughter, enjoyment and
relationship, it now froze to a grim abandoned arcade of where
once life dwelled yet never lived. The clubs would be silent
forever, the restaurants would be empty. There wouldn't be any
parties with bright lights flashing and loud music to accompany
it; but only sunlight pouring through empty and broken window
panes and the sound of cracking walls and broken wood will fill
its corridors and alleyways. No more young people to celebrate
youth; but only an ageless impersonal air, no human could ever
penetrate or humanize. The entrances were blocked by the army
with concrete slabs and barbed wire fences. In between the
fences, a large "Caution" sign is written in black bold letters.
Everything done, the army sets out to move, a few were taken as
refugees, the others have left in panic.

The medic approached Mikey and signalled him, ordering him
to board the truck.

'Johnny you don't have to."

Then and there, he left Johnny who still sat on the parking lot,
his back rested on a concrete barrier.

"The smog is approaching we have to leave."

The medic handed him a black gas mask similar to the one he's
wearing, complete with an air purifier. He could already feel the
dust go down his throat and soon he would have difficulty
breathing. He wore the mask and beneath the safety, an orange
glare altered his vision and he boarded the truck with the medic
and other two soldiers along with the medical supplies. As the
truck went down C-5 road and passed through the Pasig River. The
whole image was revealed to him. The horizon is filled with black
smoke. To the east, the Makati skyline is in flames, the whole
sector is engulfed in a bright fireball. On the sky, government
helicopters filled the horizon. With the sun shining brightly
above the sky, it seemed that the nightmarish incident already
stopped; but to his back the smog already filled the roads. And
in front, the smog moves as if the one in Makati would eventually
meet with the one in the North.